Comparative risk from Covid-19 by age
I ran across what I thought was a pretty helpful way to look at mortality risk related to Covid 19 in Bloomberg (while the article is paywalled, they allow a certain number of free articles).
As many have debated endlessly, figuring out fatality rates is challenging real time because of uncertainty about number of cases, lags in death relative to reporting of cases. While not perfect, focusing more on gross mortality rates (e.g. deaths per capita rather than deaths per case) means we only have to look at one number. The author did this by age category, then adjusted deaths for several different estimates for deaths by the end of the year (100,000; 200,000 and 750,000). The author also looked at how a death total of 200,000 would impact, mortality rates by age group.
It very starkly shows how little this impacts the youngest. Even at 750,000 deaths for those under 14, your chance of dying from Covid-19 are substantially less than your chances from dying from the flu.
What may surprise is the risks for those in the middle. At 45 to 54 we are rapidly reaching the point where more people have died from Covid-19 than died from car accidents. For those over 55, we’ve already surpassed it.
Another way to look at this is to compare what the theoretical increase in mortality rate would be if Covid deaths were additive to all deaths (while I can imagine people quibbling with the concept, if you focus on it merely as a way to compare across age groups, I think it is pretty illuminating. For those under 24, the number is well below 1 for 100,000 deaths (the author calculated for 200,000, I halved it). For 45 to 54 it is 3.2%. Not much below the 3.5% for those 85 and older.
in other words, while your overall odds of dying if you are 45 to 54 of any cause is way lower than your odds of dying from any cause if you are 85 or older, if you were to die in 2020, chances that it would be from Covid-19 are actually not much lower than the chances it would be for someone much older.
Figure 6 in this paper also breaks things down by age. It’s definitely not a step function. Odds gradually get worse as you get older.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2020/04/30/2020.04.08.20058578.full.pdf
small children are more likely to survive the virus because their immune systems are less developed because they don’t have an overreaction caused by a cytokine storm. Drink lots of whole milk to get your vitamin D
From everything I've read, this is what I've concluded as well.
Lack of vitamin D likely also explains why this virus is so much more deadly in the African-american community.
All of this is still TBD, but I'm foghorning to my loved ones to get vitamin D. It's cheap, readily available, no side effects. Unfortunately there's data that indicates 1) vitamin D supplements may not be very effective, so go outside, but 2) going outside in the northern hemisphere may not be effective for vitamin D production until June.
"... vitamin D supplements may not be very effective ..."
I've never read anything suggesting that they're effective. Sunlight (especially if you're an equatorial type by descent) is much better.
Also, drinking milk to get your Vitamin D is a little bit like eating Cheerios to get your Vitamin <whatever>. Not worth it ...
It's not worth it unless you drink whole milk. Milk naturally contains a good supply of Vitamin D and naturally occurring Vitamin D is well-absorbed by the body.
The problem is that Vitamin D is removed or destroyed in the process of removing milk fat. To remedy this, milk producers add artificial Vitamin D back into skim milk, but as you said, there is no evidence that this artificial additive is actually absorbed by the body.
Best way to get Vitamin D from food is to drink whole milk. 1%, 2%, and skim are really not helpful.
pretty sure we just found jack harbaugh's mgoblog account.
"Not effective" is somewhat relative to a few factors. It is absolutely true that sunlight is the best source of Vitamin-D. However, absorbing it through the skin means exposing as much of it as possible to the sun. Here in Michigan, it'll be a while before we are working on our tans (maybe we can dodge snowflakes by the pool).
I have a Vitamin-D deficiency (a problem for those of us of Eastern European descent) and my doctor started me on a daily regimen of 4000 IU. It's now back in the normal range, and has been stable.
Glad to hear that, informative too, thanks
I have anecdotal evidence from my blood work D supplements work.
I’m taking Centrum Silver. I’d be happy if my body was absorbing even 10% of the 250% RDA it contains. (So 25%.) I’ve always been D deficient because I rarely venture out doors during daylight hours for any extended period.
Ditto
Eastern European? I need to know more about this. Some type of serious seasonal affective disorder (SAD) neighboring on depression has been a tremendouse challenge my entire life. I regularly bombed December finals and saved my bacon with a strong showing in April finals. 10 years later they tell me about SAD. Vitamin D pills are little help. Sunshine is magic. I will take my shirt off on any sunny day for as long as I can stand the cold.
Can you provide a reference for the Eastern European ancestry? What form of D3 do you take? How often? I am 62 and still hoping to get a better grip on this. No french fries and running 10 miles a week has helped.
Apparently, not just Eastern Europeans. I was mistaken:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26864360/
I just take an OTC softgel. Each is 2000 IU.
Thank you. Much appreciated. Some days I take 5000 IU twice a day and it barely helps. I think I got some contributing issues. Running helps. Pizza and beer are out in the winter time. I really really wish I knew that I should avoid carbs as an undergrad as that was my reward for staying at the library and NOT getting the exercise I so badly needed to stay sharp.
In North America we make vitamin d naturally from the start of spring to the end on summer (if you can tan the uv rays are strong enough to produce vitamin d). In one hour we make 40k iu of vitamin D. After the first hour the uv rays destroy the vitamin D our body is synthesizing we then only make 10k ius a hour. The sun is only strong enough to synthesize vitamin d between the hours of 10 and 4. Don't shower immediately after you have been in the sun as it is believed that vitamin d can be washed out of your skin.
My Doc is a huge proponent of Vit D fixing a lot of things. I was deficient about 18 months ago and she put me on a 50,000 IU (once weekly) supplement. 1. It was super effective, got me right back to where I was supposed to be. 2. I don’t know if it’s that, but I haven’t been sick since, with anything. Maybe just a coincidence, but my Doc is adamant that it’s a result of the supplement.
So the virus *is* racist after all?
And to think people want to let it decide whether or not we play football this year. Shame on them
...but also get the kids off the video games and outdoors for some playtime in the sun, as exposure to sunlight is how the human body naturally produces vitamin D.
Besides, exercise is a good habit to have at any age.
and most likely because they aren't old enough to have the vast number of underlying diseases many people develop once they are in their 40's-50's etc. It wasn't that long ago that many people didn't make it to 60. Advances in medicine, tech etc have afforded us to live a much longer life span.
Not necessarily. These children in the story linked below are not yet captured in the OP’s linked analysis
https://apple.news/AFfcWr7JiS0y7FZTy7Vasug
Edit: for those downvoting this I am only linking one of many recent articles about a disease in kids that was only recently linked as caused by Covid19.
So my takeaway from this is that it’s time to train my kids for post Covid Lord of the Flies.
I just read an article from the guardian about the real life lord of the flies
And in a plot twist, a bunch of kids stuck on an island in fact worked together and survived for 15 months because human beings aren't necessarily as destructive as the machinations of an alcoholic, abusive man's fictional work would lead us to believe.
Read that too. Funny, how a single, shall we call it "meme", can be promulgated for so long it becomes reality to millions. Almost as if Goebbels was on to something...
Probably a bit extreme because your odds of dying in that 45 to 54age bracket from anything are quite low. But it will certainly make the top ten and quite possibly the top 5 causes of death in that age bracket in the US this year.
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa-cause-of-death-by-age-and-gender
This, by the way, is the exact plot of the woefully underrated New Zealand kids series from about 20 years ago: The Tribe. You can watch it now on Amazon Prime, I believe...
So, more evidence that we need to shift our focus toward protecting the at risk group and get others back to work before it is too late.
To do what exactly? Demand is disappearing. Companies won't rehire out of benevolence.
I hear there is demand for contact tracing.
The US is obviously very different from Taiwan, but they’ve seen movie theater attendance fall by ~75% and restaurant visits drop by ~22%. For businesses with razor thin margins, they’re not going to survive even when we open up because there’s a segment of the population that is more risk averse. The economic impact of this is far-reaching I’m afraid.
Once someone shows me our laughable government has an actual plan to protect the vulnerable and the capability to pull it off, sign me up. Absent of a plan, those advocating for getting our economy open are sponsoring eugenics.
Eugenics? Care to explain?
They are suggesting that people with “good genes,” in this case defined by having the ability to survive the virus will survive. Those that don’t, won’t. The problem with this line of thinking is that mortality rates climb after you reach your 50’s, well past normal reproductive age.
That seems like natural selection, but thanks for the response.
It's a partisan argument, and nothing more than increasing the volume of his yelling and degree of his insults. It's not rational, so it can be ignored.
He's probably been calling everyone who doesn't agree with him a nazi. People were offended at first and reacted to him. Then everyone started to rightly ignore his screaming, and he's hoping if uses another race-bating term people will take notice of him again. This is true of both partisan sides of course. I'm actually not sure which one this guy is on. I'm guessing he hates Trump, which is of course ironic given a member of his party would be the governor of this state, and have a much more direct effect on the actions he's decrying as not being taken.
If they start to make rational arguments using reason, engage by all means. If they're just screaming insults, ignore.
I’m sure you are referring to Andrew Cuomo who ordered nursing homes to take in Covid positive people. Talk about blood on your hands
A stopped clock is correct a very small percentage of the time. When the overall idiocy of your COVID-19 contributions is considered, this is close to your stopped-clock moment.
There might be a plan or there may never be a plan. The only plan we have ever seen for something like this is that it runs its course. I cannot see any logic that says we should wait for an unknown to resolve itself.
We can't be sure that once recovered that one would be immune but somehow a vaccine is on the way. That appears to be an impossibly small theoretical window of opportunity.
There might be a plan or there may never be a plan. The only plan we have ever seen for something like this is that it runs its course. I cannot see any logic that says we should wait for an unknown to resolve itself.
We can't be sure that once recovered that one would be immune but somehow a vaccine is on the way. That appears to be an impossibly small theoretical window of opportunity.
Not sure where you live, but I think it depends upon whether you ever had significant numbers of ICU cases and if you’ve come down from those numbers. Since the main reason for stay at home orders was concern about health care capacity.
As I posted yesterday, that is not the case in Maryland.
https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/
Other numbers (like new cases) are starting to look better, so the (Republican) governor is starting to ease restrictions and is likely to ease more over the next several weeks. Personally, I think this measured approach makes sense and is quite consistent with the goal of not overwhelming hospitals.
Obviously other places are at different points on the curve and other reasonable people might make different conclusions even given the same data about risks to the health care system being overwhelmed.
I 100% agree that we need to find better ways to prevent future surges and reduce the need for future stay at home orders. Unfortunately no one seems to have done a particularly good job at protecting those most at risk. What would you do differently for those vulnerable populations?
My sister is a doctor in Maryland. She told me the number of cases in her county was 50 yesterday, after being around 5 most days. She’s aware that 1 day doesn’t make a trend, but she’s still cautioning us to maintain social distancing.
Cases will never go to zero....need to get on with it or there will be nothing to get back to.
Unfortunately, most vulnerable people can't remain hermetically sealed from the world. Many older people live in multi-generational households; some younger immuno-compromised people have jobs or children in schools. Not that everyone needs to stay on lockdown forever, but it's reasonable to ask everyone who's out and about to practice extreme safety and maximize social distancing to the best of their abilities. This will reduce community transmission and ultimately protect the vulnerable. The less community spread, the fewer deaths.
This seems a very reasonable take in these days of hyper politicized crap. Thank You.
Too late for what?
Sorry, double post.
Sometimes it's good to be a shitstain millenial
Even if you're a millennial and this is just sarcasm, these jokes are so played out.
Milleanials are all gonna be in their 40s and people will still be calling skateboarding teenagers 'millenials'
The early millennials are turning 40 right now. Millennials are typically defined as being born from about 1980-1995.